Materiality Re_Mined; Deep Within the Screen of a Cell Phone →

This e-book on our installation, Materiality Re_Mined; Deep Within the Screen of a Cell Phone has now been published and can be accessed here on blurb.com. It contains images of the installation and written contributions by Barbara Morris and Jeremy Morgan.

Cuts Make You. e-book

Lines Left Out

  I recently revisited  "Lines Left Out", an installation that I made four years ago for the Big

Read Project of Sonoma County. I was invited to create an installation in response to the

selected book, Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451.  A friend's book group recently read the

book and invited me to talk about what I had done.

 

An opportunity to revisit, review and possibly rethink the project and how it is still

influencing my current work.  At the time I found it ironic that themes of the book that

interested me most, were issues that I needed to address in the making of the installation.

Issues such as: What gets seen? What gets cut? Who decides? How that process happens?

How pace can affect what gets seen, remembered and forgotten.

 

I received the invitation in July of '07 and installed it in early October, only three months to

create and install it. The Library Gallery at Sonoma State is a large space and I work slowly.

Could I do this?  Given my interest in the changing role of books and  screens of technology,

I had already started this work without knowing. I inventoried what I had: book covers &

parts, organza silk, silk-screened American target silhouettes, prints, a salvaged structure,

bamboo, and 4 x 4 blocks.

 

My challenge was to put them together in a form that spoke to the feeling and space of

Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury's themes from 1953 are still relevant today. Magritte and the

silhouette, surrealism, photography, walls, mirrors, memory & memorials, and the dandelion

came to mind. I "burned to keep a focus!" to the rhythms of Bradbury's words: "Quick. Click, Pic,

Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here, There, Swift, Pace, Up, Down, In, Out, Why, How, Who, What,

Where, Eh?"  Cut, Cut, Cut. A process; cutting became a way to reflect on a theme of the book.

 

After deinstalling, I made Lines Left Out, an iphoto book that records a poetic response to my

installation experience, using landscape, artwork, book parts, and images of the art

installation. The visual poem was inspired by Paul Klee's concept of drawing, "taking the line

for a walk", the words of New Zealand artist, Hadwen, as he described landscape as "the place

where everything we see, know, and imagine exists...a field punctuated by natural and

introduced landmarks that exist not only in the physical sense, but as signifiers of our

mental, psychological and spiritual world.", and Dorothy Richardson (Pilgrimage), turn of the

20th century author committed to wandering in territory of the tangential with the belief that

"nothing is a side issue".

 

I  showed this iphoto book as a slide show to the book group.  And upon reflection, I realize

how this work was a beginning and has since stimulated the iterations, "Cuttings" and

"Long Look".  I am soon to travel to Iceland for an artist residency this summer.  My

head is churning in anticipation for the next iteration.

In Material: E-book

In Material: E-Book

The last few shows that I have posted have come about due to work that I created for the In Material exhibit at Quicksilver Mine Co in Forestville, California last year.  The exhibit featured my work and the work of two other artists, Susan Field and Elizabeth Sher.  We explored materiality through various materials and mediums including stones, book remnants, digital technology and algae.   The e-book documents the exhibit. Take a look.

You can also find a review of this exhibit on the blog of  Satri Pencak, an independent curator in Sonoma County.

In Material blurb book